Tom Watson, in a recent speech at the Cooperative Conference to launch his new Future of Work Commission, suggested that it is imperative for Labour to keep an open mind about Trump. In doing so he seems to have taken on board some of the anti-globalisation sentiment of America’s protectionists, setting the Commission off on […]
Posts under ‘East Asia’
Global economic crisis: has Labour dodged a bullet?
May 18th, 2015 by Ann Pettifor.While Labour and LibDem activists mourn, and political opportunists seize the moment, is the loss of the election such a bad thing? Might this be a good time to lose an election? I think so. The reasons can be found in both domestic and global financial imbalances, in the advance of de-globalisation trends that are […]
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Tectonic plates shifting in world power structure are signs of a new world order
Mar 23rd, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Something has just happened which got hardly any attention in the media, but which is very important. The recent setting up by China of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank may not seem likely to excite the passions, but it should. For this is clearly an intention by the big Asian powers to challenge the World […]
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International support rolls in for workers striking for democracy in Hong Kong
Oct 1st, 2014 by Jon Lansman.The call for a general strike in support of the democracy movement by the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) – the only independent union in China – has attracted widespread international support. The Swire Beverages (Coca-Cola) union and the HKCTU unions of school teachers and dockers were striking on Monday after mass civil disobedience actions had […]
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China to overtake US economy by 2015: trying to learn from what works
May 6th, 2014 by Michael Burke.Facts can be a very severe judge. Either economic structures, the models used to explain them and economic policies work, or they don’t. The factual verdict alone can determine who was right, what was successful, what economic system works best. The chart below is reproduced from The Economist. It shows the change in the IMF’s […]
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Who’s fooling who at the BBC about the rise of China?
Feb 27th, 2014 by Michael Burke.Robert Peston is the BBC’s new economics editor. He has opened his new role with a programme called ‘How China Fooled the World’. For a time it is available on BBC iPlayer and Peston’s own summary is here. In the blog and the programme Peston argues that China dodged the global economic crisis by increasing […]
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North Korea, and the autonomy of violence
Dec 16th, 2013 by Andy Newman.I am extremely concerned by the events in North Korea, and the recent execution of Jang Song-thaek. I have written before about the brutally appalling and yet comic opera absurdity of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), here, here, here,and here. It is worth reflecting upon how, once unleashed in any given society, the entry […]
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Kim Jong-un and the purge
Dec 16th, 2013 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.After decades of loyal service to the Kim dynasty, “despicable human scum … who was worse than a dog” was probably not the epitaph Chang Song-thaek hoped for. But the very public and very final defenestration of the “traitor for all ages” says a couple of things I think professional Kimologists and the BBC are missing. The […]
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Selling pig semen to China is hardly the stuff of a great economic revival
Dec 9th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.There is something pitiful and desperate about, first, Osborne and Johnson, and then Cameron flying off to China to beg them on bended knee to come and invest in Britain with every incentive laid on and every regulation pushed sideways if it gets in the way. As a result the Chinese are now wheeled in […]
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George Osborne and ruling class decadence
Oct 22nd, 2013 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.If you think this is about the chancellor’s youthful larks with Natalie Rowe, you will surely be disappointed. What’s more important – and far more damaging – from the standpoint of British capital is his current game of footsie with the Chinese Communist Party. The very notion that not only is he letting the Chinese […]
